Macedonia Politics

As this country's national unity government tries to cope with an ethnic Albanian guerrilla insurgency and its own fierce internal divisions, only severe foreign pressure and fear of a full-scale civil war keep it together. The multiethnic government formed in mid-May is like a critically ill hospital patient, already on life support from the international community, said Arben Xhaferi, the country's leading ethnic Albanian politician.

Parliament wrestled with a crucial vote on Macedonia's peace process Tuesday, with many lawmakers criticizing the pact but conceding that intense international pressure left little room for defiance. But as the debate dragged on, a series of legislators came down clearly against the accord. The assembly was scheduled to reconvene today.

His face is rigid from Parkinson's disease, and his words come in hoarse whispers, far behind his racing thoughts. But it's impossible to miss the panic in Arben Xhaferi's eyes or the urgency of his message: Macedonia is running out of time to reform.

The leaders of Macedonia's major Slavic and Albanian parties have agreed to talks on reforming the constitution in an effort to end a four-month rebel insurgency, President Boris Trajkovski said Wednesday. Trajkovski made his announcement at a news conference attended by U.S. envoy James Pardew and his European Union counterpart, Francois Leotard, both of whom arrived in Skopje in the wake of riots that brought the Balkan country to the brink of civil war last week.

Parliament wrestled with a crucial vote on Macedonia's peace process Tuesday, with many lawmakers criticizing the pact but conceding that intense international pressure left little room for defiance. But as the debate dragged on, a series of legislators came down clearly against the accord. The assembly was scheduled to reconvene today.

The leaders of Macedonia's major Slavic and Albanian parties have agreed to talks on reforming the constitution in an effort to end a four-month rebel insurgency, President Boris Trajkovski said Wednesday. Trajkovski made his announcement at a news conference attended by U.S. envoy James Pardew and his European Union counterpart, Francois Leotard, both of whom arrived in Skopje in the wake of riots that brought the Balkan country to the brink of civil war last week.

In a surprise move, Macedonian officials abruptly shut the border to newly arriving refugees from Yugoslavia late Wednesday, demanding that other nations do more to pay for the Balkan crisis. Interior Ministry officials said that, from now on, they will allow into Macedonia each day only as many Kosovo Albanian refugees as are evacuated out of their country to other nations. U.N. officials were stunned by the closure, which they said forced at least 1,000 refugees back into Yugoslavia. One U.N.

Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and a senior Russian diplomat will face off in London on Monday in a tense post-Cold War confrontation over escalating violence in Kosovo, a restive province of Serbia where ethnic Albanian rebels are battling Serbian police.

As this country's national unity government tries to cope with an ethnic Albanian guerrilla insurgency and its own fierce internal divisions, only severe foreign pressure and fear of a full-scale civil war keep it together. The multiethnic government formed in mid-May is like a critically ill hospital patient, already on life support from the international community, said Arben Xhaferi, the country's leading ethnic Albanian politician.

His face is rigid from Parkinson's disease, and his words come in hoarse whispers, far behind his racing thoughts. But it's impossible to miss the panic in Arben Xhaferi's eyes or the urgency of his message: Macedonia is running out of time to reform.